© Robert J. Brym and John Lie,
Sociology: Your Compass for a New World , 2 nd
ed. (Belmont
CA: Wadsworth, 2005) pp. 450-7.
World Religions
There are five major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and
Buddhism. They are major in the sense that they have had a big impact on world history and, aside from Judaism, continue to have hundreds of millions of adherents. They are world religions in the sense that their adherents live in many countries.
Other religions have many adherents too. For example, some scholars consider
Confucianism a major world religion. Certainly, Confucianism has had a tremendous impact on
East Asian societies, and we still find East Asians who claim to be Confucian, especially in
Singapore. Furthermore, some Confucian rituals such as ancestor worship resemble religious practice. However, we believe Confucianism is best seen as a worldview or a philosophy of life
(Ivanhoe, 2000 [1993]). Few East Asians regard Confucianism as a religion.
The five major world religions we survey below are similar in three ways. First, with the exception of Hinduism, charismatic leaders helped to turn them into world religions. Max Weber defined charismatic leaders as men and women who claim to be inspired by supernatural or divine powers and whose followers believe them to be so inspired. Second, and again with the exception of Hinduism, all five world religions had egalitarian and emancipatory messages at their origins. That is, they claimed to stand for equality and freedom. Third, over time, the charismatic leadership of the world religions became routinized. The routinization of charisma is Weber’s term for the transformation of divine enlightenment into a permanent feature of everyday life. It involves turning religious inspiration into a stable social institution with defined roles, such as interpreters of the divine message, teachers, dues-paying lay people, and so forth.
The routinization of charisma often involves the weakening of the ideals of freedom and inequality. Under some conditions it gives way to their opposite: repression and inequality.
Judaism
According to the Bible, the first Jew was Abraham, who lived nearly 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, now Iraq (Roth, 1961; Gottwald, 1979). Abraham’s unique contribution was to assert that there is only one God; before him, people believed in many gods. The Bible says that God promised Abraham abundant offspring and a land of their own.
Abraham’s great-grandson, Joseph, was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt. There,
Joseph became a trusted advisor of the Pharaoh. However, a later Pharaoh enslaved the Jews, and about 400 years after Joseph’s arrival in Egypt the prophet Moses led them out of bondage. The emancipation of the Jews from slavery still stands today as a defining moment in the history of
Judaism. It has inspired generations of Jews and non-Jews to believe that God sanctions freedom and equality. Practicing Jews celebrate the emancipation annually during Passover, which has become one of the most important Jewish festivals.
After 40 years of wandering in the desert, during which time Moses received the Ten
Commandments, the Jews arrived in Canaan, the land that God had promised Abraham.
(Modern-day Israel and ancient Canaan occupy roughly the same territory.) Thereafter, Judaism spread throughout the Middle East and established itself as a major religion during Roman rule.
Increased persecution in the Roman period led the religious leaders (“rabbis”) to settle in Galilee.
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There, between the second and the sixth centuries, Judaism assumed its contemporary form, characterized by the centrality of the rabbis and the Torah (the five books of Moses, known to
Christians as the Old Testament).
The central teachings of Judaism rest above all on belief in one God, Yahweh . However, many commentators argue that the core of Judaism lies less in belief than in the performance of the 613 divine commandments or mitzvot mentioned in the Torah. The mitzvot include prescriptions for justice, righteousness, and observance: rest and pray on the Sabbath, honor the old and the wise, do not wrong a stranger in buying or selling, do not seek revenge or hold a grudge, do not eat the meat of animals with hooves, etc. Temples or synagogues are common places of worship for Jews, but they are not essential. Worship can take place wherever there is an assembly of ten adult Jewish males (or females in the more liberal branches of Judaism).
Like some other Middle Eastern peoples, the Jews were involved in international trade long before the birth of Christ. They therefore settled in many places outside the area that is now
Israel. However, after the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 70 c.e., the Jews dispersed even more widely to the far reaches of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, forming what became known as the Diaspora (“dispersion”). Jews retained their identity in the Diaspora because in pre-modern times they specialized in mercantile activities that separated them from peasants and landowners, because they tended to be strictly observant, and because they were periodically persecuted, mainly by Christians. (In general, Muslims were more tolerant of Jews until recently.) In 1948, Israel was returned to Jewish sovereignty.
Just over 5 million Jews live in the United States -- about the same number as in Israel. The considerable diversity among Jews in the United States derives from disagreements that began more than 400 years ago. In 17 th century Eastern Europe, ecstatic and mystical sects of Chasidim broke away from the staid and bookish Judaism of the time. Today in New York and other large
American cities, one can still see Chasidic Jews dressed in their characteristic black robes and broad-brimmed hats (ironically, the garb of 17 th
century Polish noblemen). In 19 th
century
Germany, the Reform movement also broke with traditional Jewish practice. Influenced by
Lutheranism, Reform Judaism was a liberal movement that involved a loosening of strict rules of religious observance, prayer in the German language, the integration of men and women in worship, services that followed the kind of decorum associated with Protestant worship, and the introduction of choirs and organs to enhance prayer. The Reform movement transplanted itself to the United States with the immigration of German Jews and is now the most popular Jewish denomination in this country. Orthodox Judaism emerged as a reaction against the liberalizing tendencies of the Reform movement. It involved a return to traditional observance, including strict adherence to dietary rules, the segregation of men and women in prayer, and so forth.
Conservative Judaism crystallized in Britain and the United States in the 19 th
century as an attempt to reconcile what its practitioners regard as the positive elements in Orthodoxy with the dynamism of Reform. Finally, Reconstructionist Judaism is a smaller, 20 th
century American offshoot of Conservatism, known chiefly for its liberalism, social activism, and genderegalitarianism.
Christianity
Observant Jews believe that God promised them a Messiah, a redeemer whose arrival would signal the beginning of an era of eternal peace, prosperity, and righteousness. Jews believe the
Messiah has not yet arrived. Christians believe he has. In the Christian view, the Messiah is Jesus
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(McManners, 1990; Brown, 1996).
Jesus was a poor Jew and his early followers were all Jewish. Yet he criticized the Judaism of his time for its external conformity to tradition and ritual at the expense of developing a true relationship to God as demanded by the prophets. Believe in God and love him; love your neighbor -- these are the two main lessons of Jesus. What made his teaching novel was his demand that people match outward performance with inner conviction. Thus, it was not enough not to murder. One could not even hate. Nor was it enough not to commit adultery. One could not even lust after a neighbor’s wife (Matthew V, 21-30).
These lessons made Jesus anti-authoritarian and even revolutionary. Criticizing ritual by rote put Jesus at odds with the established Judaism of his time. Admonishing people to love their neighbors impressed upon them the need to emancipate slaves and women. It also challenged people to recognize the essential equality of the beggar and the wealthy merchant in the eyes of
God. Roman authorities could hardly be happy with such teachings because they attracted the poor and the dispossessed and they were a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the Roman
Empire, built as it was on slavery and privilege. Little wonder that the Romans persecuted Jesus and his followers, eventually executing him by crucifixion, a cruel and painful death reserved for slaves and the worst criminals. Christians interpret the death of Jesus as atonement for the sins of humanity.
For at least a century after Jesus’ death, the Christians formed a minor Jewish sect. Aided by twelve of Jesus’ main followers, the apostles, Christianity gained adherents largely from within the Jewish community. However, because they encountered opposition from Judaism, the
Christians soon began to preach their message to non-Jews. This required that they redefine
Jesus’ message as a correction and fulfillment of Greek and Roman philosophy. This helped
Christianity spread, but even as it did, the Roman Empire continued to persecute Christians.
Many heresies and schisms also beset the Christians in these first centuries after the death of
Jesus. There thus arose the need for stable, recognized leadership and set, recognized holy texts.
The bishop and the canon date from this period. They were the routinization of Jesus’ charisma in practice.
In 312 c.e., the Roman Emperor Constantine I the Great converted to Christianity. He soon turned Christianity into a state religion. It then spread rapidly throughout Europe. By allying itself first with the Roman Empire and then with other earthly powers -- European royalty and the landowning class -- the Church became the dominant institution, religious or secular, in
Europe until the 16 th century. It also contributed to gender inequality insofar as women played a marginal role in its affairs. Just as Judaism had been transformed from an emancipatory religion into one that could be criticized by Jesus for ritualistic staleness, so Christianity was transformed from a revolutionary force into a pillar of the existing order.
In the 16 th
century, a German priest by the name of Martin Luther challenged the Christian establishment by seeking to establish a more personal relationship between the faithful and God.
At the time, ordinary people were illiterate and they had to rely on priests to hear the holy word and have it interpreted for them. However, by insisting that Christians come to know God themselves, as Jesus demanded, Luther called into question the whole Church hierarchy. His protests and his ideas quickly captured the imagination of half of Europe and led to the split of
Christianity into the two major branches that persist to this day, Catholicism and Protestantism.
This is by no means the only division within Christianity. In the Middle Ages, Christianity split into Western and Eastern halves, the former centered in Rome, the latter in Constantinople
(now Istanbul, Turkey). Various Orthodox churches today derive from the Eastern tradition.
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Protestantism has been especially prone to splintering because it emphasizes the individual’s relationship to God rather than a central authority. Today, there are hundreds of different
Protestant churches.
Christians retained the Jewish Bible as the Old Testament, adding the gospels and letters of the apostles as the New Testament. The Bible is the most important text for Christians.
Especially for Protestants, reading the New Testament is an important part of what it means to be a Christian. Traditionally the most important holiday for Christians was Easter but increasingly
Christians have celebrated Christmas, originally a pagan holiday that became especially popular in the 19 th
century.
Christianity remains the dominant religion in the West. Because of its successful missionary efforts, it can be found virtually everywhere in the world. Yet Christianity remains a truly heterogeneous religion. Some Christians are fundamentalist and conservative, others are mainstream and more liberal, while still others are socialist and even revolutionary. Some support feminists and homosexuals, while others regard them as abominations. Its success is due in part to its ability to encompass diverse and even contradictory currents.
Islam
Christianity emerged in a society dominated by Roman conquerors, a society in which ordinary people were burdened by heavy taxes and temple levies. Several military revolts against the Romans took place in this period, and some scholars view Jesus’ message as a religious response to the oppressive social conditions of his time.
Islam originated more than 600 years later in the city of Mecca in what is now Saudi
Arabia. It, too, may be seen as a religious response to a society in crisis. Mecca was a rich center of trade, and the powerful merchants of that city had become greedy, overbearing, and corrupt.
The merchants ignored the traditional moral code that originated in the surrounding nomadic tribes (the Bedouin). The Bedouin themselves were heavily indebted to the merchants and became so poor that some of them were sold into slavery. On a larger canvas, many people in
Arabia thought that the Persian and Roman Empires, which dominated the Middle East, might soon fall, heralding the end of the world (Rodinson, 1996).
Into this crisis stepped Muhammad, who claimed to have visions from God (Hodgson,
1974; Lapidus, 2002 [1988]). His teachings were later written down in the Qur’an . Certain episodes and personalities that appear in the holy books of Judaism and Christianity also appear in the Qur’an ; Muslims recognize both Moses and Jesus as prophets, for example. The central belief of Islam is that there is one true God, Allah, and that the words of his Prophet,
Muhammad, must be followed. Islam also emphasizes important teachings of Christianity, such as egalitarianism and universal love. Even more than Judaism or Christianity, however, the
Qur’an is important for devout Muslims because they believe it is the direct word of God.
Like Judaism with its Talmudic commentaries on the Bible, Islam stresses the significance of hadith (traditions), a corpus of anecdotes and commentaries about Muhammad. Like rabbis in
Judaism and priests in Catholicism, ulamas (scholars) maintain religious authority in Islam.
Unlike Christianity, however, Islam has never had a central Church. Although any place can become a site of prayer and learning, mosques are the traditional places of worship.
People who profess Islam have five duties. At least once in their life they must recite the
Muslim creed aloud, correctly, with full understanding, and with heartfelt belief. (The creed is:
“There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.”) Five times a day they must worship
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in a religious service. They must fast from sunrise to sunset every day during the ninth month of the lunar calendar (Ramadan). They must give charity to the poor. And at least once in their life they must make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.
By the time of his death, Muhammad had founded an empire, and a dispute broke out over how his followers could identify his successor (the khalifa or caliph in English). One group claimed that the caliphate should be an elected office occupied by a member of a certain Meccan tribe. These were the Sunni Muslims. A second group claimed that the caliph should be the direct descendant of Muhammad. These were the Shia Muslims. Today, the great majority of Muslims are Sunni, while the Shia are concentrated in Iran and southern Iraq. The Shia are generally more conservative and fundamentalist than the Sunni.
Islam spread rapidly after Muhammad’s death, replacing Christianity in much of the Middle
East, Africa, and western and southern Europe. It ushered in a great cultural flowering and an era of considerable religious tolerance by the standards of the time. Significantly, the Jews flourished in Muslim Spain and North Africa at the very time they were being persecuted and expelled from Christian Europe.
Only a few Islamic sects developed in the modern era. The most noteworthy was
Wahhabism, an extreme fundamentalist movement that originated in the 18 th
century in what is now Saudi Arabia. Its founder, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, upheld ritual over intentions, opposed reverence of the dead, and demanded that prayer and honors be extended only to Allah and not to Muhammad or the saints. He opposed all music and all books other than the Qur’an , and favored the extermination of anyone who disagreed with him, especially if they happened to be Shia. Characteristically, in 1801 Wahhabis stormed the Iraqi city of Karbala, wrecked and looted the sacred tomb of Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, and slaughtered thousands of the city’s Shia residents.
Wahhabism might be ignored as a minor fanatical sect if it were not for one important historical fact. In 1747, al-Wahhab made a pact with Muhammad ibn Sa’ud whereby ibn Sa’ud became the political ruler of the Arabian peninsula and al-Wahhab its religious authority. In effect, Wahabbism became the state religion of what is now Saudi Arabia. This extreme form of fundamentalism continues to flourish in Saudi Arabia today, where its tenets are taught in the
Saudi school system. It is not coincidental that nearly all of the suicide bombers who attacked the
United States on September 11, 2001 were Saudi citizens, as is Osama bin Laden himself, and that Saudi money finances schools throughout the Muslim world that propagate anti-Western ideas (Schwartz, 2003).
Hinduism
Hinduism is the dominant religion of India but it has no single founder and no books that are thought to be inspired by God. Its major texts are epic poems such as the Bhagavad Gita , the
Mahabharata , and the Ramayama . Like Judaism, Hinduism originated nearly 4,000 years ago, so we have little sense of the social context in which it first emerged (Flood, 1996). What is clear is that its otherworldliness and mystical tendencies make it very different from the three main
Western religions.
Hindus believe in reincarnation, a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Only the body dies according to Hindu belief. The soul returns in a new form after death. The form in which it returns depends on how one lives one’s life. Hindus believe that people who live in a way that is appropriate to their position in society will live better future lives. In rare cases, one reaches a
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stage of spiritual perfection ( nirvana ) that allows the soul to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth, and reunite with God. In contrast, people who do not live in a way that is appropriate to their position in society will supposedly live an inferior life when they are reincarnated. In the worst case, evildoers are expected to be reincarnated as non-humans. This way of thinking helped to create a caste system, a rigid, religiously sanctioned class hierarchy. Vertical social mobility was nearly impossible because, according to Hindu belief, striving to move out of one’s station in life is inappropriate and ensures reincarnation in a lower form.
There are many gods in the Hindu tradition, although all of them are thought to be aspects of the one true God. This too makes Hinduism different from the Western religions. A final difference between Hinduism and the Western religions is its propensity to assimilate rather than exclude other religious beliefs and practices. Traditionally, Jews, Christians, and Muslims tended to reject non-believers unless they converted. God tells Moses on Mount Sinai: “You shall have no other gods before me.” In contrast, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that “whatever god a man worships, it is I who answer the prayer.” This attitude of acceptance helped Hinduism absorb many of the ancient religions of the peoples on the Indian subcontinent. It also explains why there are such wide regional and class variations in Hindu beliefs and practices; Hinduism as it is practiced bears the stamp of many other religions.
Buddhism
By about 600 b.c.e., Hinduism had developed into a system of rituals and sacrifices that was widely considered a burden. For example, one could escape the consequences of committing inappropriate or evil acts but only by having priests perform a series of mechanical rituals. In a sense, Gautama Buddha was to Hinduism what Jesus was to Judaism. Like Jesus in Palestine 600 years later, Buddha objected to the stale ritualism of the established religion and sought to achieve a direct relationship with God (Gombrich, 1996; Lopez, 2001; Robinson and Johnson,
1997 [1982]). He rejected Hindu ideas of caste and reincarnation, and offered a new way for everyone to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Rather than justifying inequality, he promised the possibility of salvation to people of low status and women, who were traditionally marginalized by Hinduism.
Buddha based his method of salvation on what he called the Four Noble Truths: (1) Life is suffering. There are moments of joy, but poverty, violence, and other sources of sorrow overshadow them. (2) All suffering derives from desire. We suffer when we fail to achieve what we want. (3) Suffering ceases by eliminating desire. If we can train ourselves not to lust, not to be greedy, not to crave pleasure, not even to desire material comforts, we will not suffer. (4) We can eliminate desire by behaving morally, focusing intently on our feelings and thoughts, meditating, and achieving wisdom. Nirvana can be achieved by “blowing out” the futile passions of existence.
Buddhism does not presume the existence of one true God. Rather, it holds out the possibility of everyone becoming a god of sorts. Similarly, it does not have a central church or text, such as the Bible. Not surprisingly, then, Buddhism is notable for its diversity of beliefs and practices. Numerous schools and scriptures comprise the Buddhist tradition. Many Westerners are familiar with Zen Buddhism, especially influential in East Asia, which emphasizes the possibility of enlightenment through meditation.
Buddhism spread rapidly across Asia after India’s ruler adopted it as his own religion in the
3 rd
century b.c.e. He sent missionaries to convert people in Tibet, Cambodia (Kampuchea),
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Nepal, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), Myanmar (formerly Burma), China, Korean, and Japan.
Ironically, the influence of Buddhism in the land of its birth started to die out after the fifth century c.e. and is negligible in India today. In India, as we have seen, Hinduism predominates.
One of the reasons for the popularity of Buddhism in East and Southeast Asia is that Buddhism is able to co-exist with local religious practices. Unlike Western religions, Buddhism does not insist on holding a monopoly on religious truth.
Conclusion
Little historical evidence helps us understand the social conditions that gave rise to the first world religions, Judaism and Hinduism. We are on safer ground when it comes to understanding the rise of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Insofar as we dare to make sociological generalizations about thousands of years of complex religious development spanning many cultures and virtually the entire globe, we can venture four conclusions. First, new world religions are founded by charismatic personalities in times of great trouble. The impulse to find a better world is encouraged by adversity in this one. Second, the founding of new religions is typically animated by the desire for freedom and equality, always in the afterlife, and often in this one. Third, the routinization of charisma typically makes religion less responsive to the needs of ordinary people and it often supports injustices. For this reason, and also because there is no lack of adversity in the world, movements of religious reform and revival are always evident, and they often spill over into politics. For example, the Catholic
Church played a critically important role in undermining communism in Poland in the 1970s and the 1980s, and Catholic “liberation theology” animated the successful fight against right-wing governments in Latin America in the same period (Kepel, 1994 [1991]; Segundo, 1976 [1975];
Smith, 1991). It is for this reason, too, that we venture a fourth, speculative conclusion, namely that new world religions could well emerge in the future.
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